Justin > Recent Status Updates

I'm finding it helpful to write the code from short term memory. Once I run the code and the errors happen I know where to pay attention. Using that the book is now advancing at an easy pace. Cargo is a very intuitive, and powerful program. Rust has an excellent mechanism for keeping code dependencies uniform and simple to share.

Finally, a recap chapter! The test chapter was very straightforward, but easy. How motivating to make a real terminal app.

The material is very difficult here for how abstract it is. Generics represent any type, but can be constrained. Trait bounds specify behavior regardless of generic parameters or not and can specify default values. That's fine, but the combination of both and lifetimes by itself make this the hardest chapter so far.

We are admonished to practice and make predictions in advance of code review.

The material is building on previous work with enums and match expressions. Match expressions seem very useful for avoiding redundant code and ensuring every case is covered.

How do you review the material? Is the practice structured like on Project Euler or more free-flow like on Code Wars?

Happily, I find there are example problems to work out. I assumed that they would either be in the end of chapters or not be. The problems are just not as formally structured as most textbooks.

Indeed, enums and match expressions seem to be a remarkably useful feature of Rust. Because enums are exhaustive code changes to a custom type, like some enums, allow the compiler to do much of the hard work of tracking where code changes are needed.

Though it's seldom discussed in technical books today, I find it helpful to use a concept called active recall to learn without exercises. Just pause a moment, or turn the page before attempting to write the example code. Writing variations thereof also helps. The thing to avoid is simply a copy and paste challenge which is simply a waste of time.

Here is my first complaint of the book. There are some exercises in the book, but it's not consistent. The exercises don't have canonical solutions provided in the book, I'm not aware of a Github reference to such code, and most chapters don't have challenging exercises.

I love this book! It so far has no GUI based instructions so there are no problems or deviations across OSs unfortunately unlike the other books int he Humble Bundle. It has a moderate pace, and clear instructions as well.

I'm definitely drinking the cool aid. I hope Rust gradually replaces languages that are inferior in syntax, documentation, and community like C++.

It's JavaScript programmer approved.

The GUI - UGH! Why do GUI editors never work? Why do tutorials rely so much on GUI editors? These are the great metaphysical questions.

I will have to try loading the code from GitHub to see how my *auto-generated* code failed to allow the Window Builder to show any components, properties, or anything really.

I'm a frequent visitor of the MDN, but I still find this useful. The MDN didn't explain the significance of a code points and char codes regarding unicode support, for instance. The discussion about the TDZ I imagine will be useful in my work as well.

Everything is very straightforward so far. Rust seems to deliver on its promise of being a language friendly to JavaScript programmers like myself. Its tooling is breath of fresh air. The documentation is excellent in addition to this well-written book.

I don't know if this will directly land me in a better career position in a few years, but I will wager my time that this will help. I wish I had started earlier.

That ends the introduction.

If you use Linux, you are admonished to try to install pgadmin as part of a package. This didn't work for me so far. If I try to proceed with the exercises on the command line I'll update my opinion of the book.

My first impression is that it doesn't accommodate Linux sufficiently but is otherwise very straightforward.

My guilty pleasure is that I'm enjoying what feels like a programming book for children. I just made a trivial GUI app in a few lines of code on a Java REPL, which I didn't know existed 10 minutes ago, so to speak.

So far the book assumes you know next to nothing of programming let alone the syntax of C-based languages like Java, so it's a bit of a slow start for an experienced programmer.

The exercises are smoothly increasing in complexity, which is one of the most important qualities in a book to learn another language.

The instructions to setup the programming environment worked flawlessly.

The detail is overall astonishing. There are effectively no exercises, but practice is encouraged.

The author saved the best for the last.